Training and skill development

Workshops

National Services Te Paerangi is committed to building the skills of everybody volunteering or working in museums* and improving opportunities for professional development. Our services and programmes cover most aspects of museum practice.

Who do we provide training for?

We provide training regionally and nationally for staff who are seeking museum skills at several different levels. This training is provided at little or no cost, and subsidies are often provided to enable participation.

How do we decide on the type of training that is needed?Topics are chosen from feedback that we receive from the museum sector; a lot of this is gathered when our Museum Development Officers visit your museum.

What topics do our workshops cover?

Our workshops cover a wide range of topics and a summary is listed below. We will provide workshops on other topics depending upon the current needs of museums in New Zealand.

Governance, management and planning

Care of collections

Exhibition and other public services

Customer service

Relationships with communities

What level are the workshops?

We offer workshops at three different levels:

Poutama one | step one workshops are at an introductory level, aimed at those with limited experience in the museum sector. The workshops cover the basic skills required for each topic.

Poutama two | step two workshops are a new addition to the range of training we provide. They are mid level workshops aimed at people that have either completed a poutama one workshop in a specific topic, or people at an intermediate level, with approximately 3 years experience in the museum sector.

Poutama three | step three workshops are aimed at professional museum staff, with at least 5 years working in the museum sector, often in larger organisations. These workshops will draw on the expertise of leaders in the field.

Where are the workshops held?

In most cases, we work in partnership with a museum in the region to provide a venue for the workshop.

If you are interested in hosting a workshop please contact our Sector Training Coordinator, Emma Philpott:

How do you register or find out more information about our workshops?

We'll tell you about upcoming workshops in our monthly e-alerts. We also send out workshop flyers to museums that are located in the region where the workshop is being held. The flyers are sent out by email about a month in advance.

Our website calendar also lists, by date and topics, all the workshops that we provide.

If you would like to be included in the mailing list for our workshop flyers and our e-news, please subscribe online or by contacting us:

Related links

*The term museum includes: museums, art galleries, whare taonga, tribal museums, cultural centres, historic places, science centres, interpretive centres, and exhibition centres. They usually carry out a range of functions, which include but are not confined to the care of collections, public programmes including exhibitions, education, and community relationships.